Utilizing Versal Architecture for Low-Latency Super Resolution Applications

Τζομάκα, Αφροδίτη; Tzomaka, Aphrodite

dc.contributor.author	Τζομάκα, Αφροδίτη	el
dc.contributor.author	Tzomaka, Aphrodite	en
dc.date.accessioned	2023-01-19T11:08:01Z
dc.date.available	2023-01-19T11:08:01Z
dc.identifier.uri	https://dspace.lib.ntua.gr/xmlui/handle/123456789/56788
dc.identifier.uri	http://dx.doi.org/10.26240/heal.ntua.24486
dc.rights	Αναφορά Δημιουργού-Μη Εμπορική Χρήση-Όχι Παράγωγα Έργα 3.0 Ελλάδα	*
dc.rights.uri	http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/gr/	*
dc.subject	Ετερογενείς Αρχιτεκτονικές	el
dc.subject	Ενσωματωμένα Συστήματα	el
dc.subject	Versal ACAPs	en
dc.subject	Vitis AI	en
dc.subject	Συνελικτικά Νευρωνικά Δίκτυα	el
dc.subject	Super Resolution	en
dc.subject	Heterogeneous architectures	en
dc.subject	Embedded systems	en
dc.title	Utilizing Versal Architecture for Low-Latency Super Resolution Applications	en
heal.type	bachelorThesis
heal.classification	Επιστήμη Υπολογιστών	el
heal.classification	Computer Science	en
heal.language	en
heal.access	free
heal.recordProvider	ntua	el
heal.publicationDate	2022-10-17
heal.abstract	The applications flooding the modern market, such as Machine Learning (ML), digital signal processing, and 5G applications, require ever-increasing computing power. The impasse reached by Moore’s law and the end of Dennard’s scaling, gave the impetus for the exploration of alternative, heterogeneous architectures and hardware accelerators, beyond the conventional scalar processing units (CPUs), in order to satisfy the above requirements. Existing solutions, such as graphic processing units (GPUs), digital signal processors (DSPs), and field-programmable gate arrays (FPGAs), either suffer from memory issues or their increased hardware expertise prevents their widespread market adoption. In this direction, Xilinx developed and launched a new generation of powerful hybrid computing platforms, called Versal - Adaptive Compute Acceleration Platforms (ACAPs), which combines scalar processing (CPUs), programmable logic and dedicated accelerators of very high parallelism. At the same time, a set of programming tools to support the programmability of these platforms, was developed, with multiple levels of abstraction and the main focus on ease-of-use. In this thesis, we explored the potential of these innovative architectures and tools, aiming to accelerate ML applications running at the ”edge” (edge-computing). More specifically, we chose the task of Super-Resolution (SR), that is, increasing the quality of an image using a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), in our case, the ESPCN model. We have at our disposal the VCK190 platform from the Versal AI Core series, which is specifically designed for accelerating deep neural networks and has 400 AI Engines. We present two alternative implementations of the aforementioned model for this platform. One that is designed and developed with knowledge of the underlying hardware and aims to exploit the capabilities of all the computing cores of the platform (hardware-specific) and one that uses the Vitis AI tool, which is an automatic tool for developing ML applications, removing from the user the need for hardware programming knowledge (hardware-agnostic). We compare our implementations with reference to the baseline software implementation of the model, running on VCK190 device’s CPU. The results we get are very encouraging. The hardwarespecific implementation shows excellent performance reaching 518 FPS and presenting a maximum acceleration of 1.87x compared to the CPU and 1.36x compared to the Vitis AI implementation, even without reaching the resources’ limits and with minimal losses in image quality. The Vitis AI implementation, however, suffers both in terms of image quality and performance compared to what we expected, highlighting the importance of the ”performance - programming ease” trade-off.	en
heal.advisorName	Σιούντρης, Δημήτριος	el
heal.advisorName	Soudris, Dimitrios	en
heal.committeeMemberName	Tsanakas, Panayiotis	en
heal.committeeMemberName	Xydis, Sotirios	en
heal.academicPublisher	Εθνικό Μετσόβιο Πολυτεχνείο. Σχολή Ηλεκτρολόγων Μηχανικών και Μηχανικών Υπολογιστών. Τομέας Τεχνολογίας Πληροφορικής και Υπολογιστών. Εργαστήριο Μικροϋπολογιστών και Ψηφιακών Συστημάτων VLSI	el
heal.academicPublisherID	ntua
heal.numberOfPages	103 σ.	el
heal.fullTextAvailability	false